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• 911 centers across the country are experiencing a shortage of dispatchers. It’s affecting many Wisconsin communities, regardless of size or location.
• These shortages make a difficult job harder and shifts even longer. The work is mentally taxing, and that’s amplified when there are fewer people on staff. 
• Who is a good fit for the job? People who can multi-task, stay calm under pressure, talk to strangers easily and handle high emotions.
• Some counties have eased their shortages by boosting pay, focusing on mental health and opening up part-time positions. 
• AI is helping tackle some problems, but it’s not replacing dispatchers.
• A college education isn’t necessary for the job, but Wisconsin’s tech colleges are adding emergency dispatch programs that help people see if the job is for them.

Children love to dress up as firefighters and police officers. They imagine themselves rushing into danger, answering the call when people are in need. 

But how many of them realize they could literally be the one to answer those calls — as a 911 dispatcher?

 “Not many people know about this as a career field,” said Gail Goodchild, emergency preparedness director for Waukesha County, at a Wisconsin Watch virtual panel discussion on Wednesday. “I think about trick or treaters … Nobody walks around with a headset and says, ‘I’m going to be a dispatcher someday.’”

The panel of emergency telecommunications professionals and educators said the low profile of emergency dispatch is one of many reasons that 911 centers across the country struggle to fill openings.

In Wisconsin, rural and urban communities alike are regularly short of dispatchers. Wisconsin Watch reported last year on Brown County’s “relentless” shortage and what the city can learn from successful changes in Waukesha County. This panel, moderated by reporter Miranda Dunlap, continues that conversation by highlighting perspectives and solutions from experts across the state.

“We have a critical, nationwide shortage of 911 professionals,” said Chippewa County Emergency Communications Center Director and longtime dispatcher Tamee Thom, who is also president of WIPSCOM, a board representing 911 professionals across Wisconsin.

Solving the problem, panelists agreed, will require both attracting new dispatchers and supporting those already on the job. They recommend raising awareness about the career, improving pay and working conditions, providing mental health support and technology to reduce burnout, and officially designating these professionals as first responders, in the same category as paramedics, firefighters and police.

Lives on the line

Emergency dispatch work is mentally and emotionally taxing, panelists said. At any moment, a dispatcher must be prepared for everything from talking someone through delivering a baby to responding to an act of violence. 

“It can go from zero to 90 in seconds,” Goodchild said. “One minute you’re talking with your podmate, and then the (phones) are ringing off the hook for … a car accident or, God forbid, an active shooter at the local school.”

Dispatchers must remain calm to gather necessary information, relay instructions —  say, how to perform CPR or deliver a baby — and de-escalate tension if needed. Meanwhile, they’re doing multiple other tasks, including taking notes, using mapping tools to better locate the caller, and talking with law enforcement dispatchers. 

When a call ends, the dispatcher might never find out what happened afterward. Sometimes, they finish a life-or-death call and then pick up a mundane call about trash pickup or parking tickets, sending them on an emotional rollercoaster.

The job only gets harder when 911 centers are shortstaffed. Staff who typically work 8- or 12-hour shifts could have to work 16, Goodchild said. In some cases, they leave work only to clock back in eight hours later. 

“You might have time to go home, maybe tuck in your kids at night. You’re getting a couple hours of sleep … pack your lunch … then get back to work,” Goodchild said. 

But despite the challenges, veteran dispatchers say there’s a reason they’ve stayed in the field for decades. 

Billi Jo Baneck, communications coordinator at the Shawano County Sheriff’s Office, once quit dispatch work to direct events at a wedding venue. 

“I tried to leave … and I came right back,” Baneck said. “It just consumes you.”

What’s working

Waukesha County offers some clues about how to fix the shortage. In 2023, the department had 20 vacancies. By July 2025, it had just two. 

One of the most important changes was to start hiring candidates based on personality rather than specific skills, said Goodchild, who took over as director a year ago. 

“We can teach customer service. We can teach them how to read a protocol, but if they’re coming in with a bad attitude, it really messes up the culture in that environment and adds to the stress.”

The department also conducted a compensation study, which led it to raise the starting wage for dispatchers from around $27 to almost $29.50 to compete with other employers. 

“People were leaving for less stressful jobs … They were going into the private industry because they could get paid better to do less,” Goodchild said. 

Waukesha’s success has caught the attention of emergency telecommunications leaders across the state. Still, Goodchild said, the county’s work isn’t done.

“While we’ve made changes and we’ve seen improvements,” Goodchild said, “we’re still not at full staffing … We have to continue to stay vigilant and identify those gaps and issues before they get to be bigger problems, and remain adaptable in meeting the needs of the center and certainly the communities that we serve.”

Thom agrees. In Chippewa County, her department has created part-time positions for dispatchers who wanted to cut back their schedules, and it’s passed some administrative and training duties to once-retired dispatchers who don’t want the stress of taking calls. 

That kind of “innovative” scheduling is essential, she said. 

“These days, people are really looking for that work-life balance … so I think any way that we can help add to that … I think we’re going to retain staff,” Thom said.

To support dispatchers’ mental health, some departments have created peer support programs for dispatchers and other first responders to supplement existing mental health services. 

Meanwhile, Waukesha County has hired a specialized therapy contractor called First Responder Psychological Services to meet with new hires and check in once or twice a year with every employee. All the company’s staff have worked in public safety, so they understand the specific stresses of the job, Goodchild said.

A role for AI?

Another way departments are easing the burden on overworked dispatchers: artificial intelligence. Waukesha is among the Wisconsin departments that now use an AI agent to answer non-emergency calls. That could include questions about how to pay a parking ticket, or what time the local fireworks show starts. 

“I just want to be clear, because I know everybody’s fear is that you’re going to get an AI agent (when you’re) calling 911: That’s not the case,” Goodchild said. 

That change, Goodchild said, means dispatchers get a little more down time and don’t experience so much of an emotional rollercoaster.

“You’re not going to send a law enforcement tactical team to go get a kitten out of a tree, right?” Goodchild said. “We train our 911 dispatchers at such a high level to provide CPR instructions, childbirth instructions, the de-escalating skills, multitasking skills. Why are you having them focus on a caller that’s calling in about when the fireworks are?”

Some schools and 911 centers are also using AI to train new dispatchers, said Shawano County’s Baneck, who also teaches emergency telecommunications at Northeast Wisconsin Technical College. 

Tech colleges step in

Wisconsin’s tech colleges can play an important role in fixing the shortage by raising awareness about the field and helping potential dispatchers figure out whether the job is right for them, panelists said.

Andrew Baus, associate dean of human services at Moraine Park Technical College, helped create the college’s new emergency dispatch certificate program. Baus worked for years as a paramedic, the third generation in his family to work as a first responder. 

“Growing up, the options were always fire or criminal justice. It really never dawned that dispatching was right there with them,” Baus said. Now, he said, he’s trying to show students that dispatch is another “great option.”

To excel in dispatch, a person must multitask and be friendly with strangers, Baneck said. Those people can be hard to find.

“People with customer service experience that are used to angry customers, angry shoppers, (and) people that have been in the food service industry that are used to running back and forth, taking multiple orders … they do really well in this kind of job.”

You don’t typically need certifications to get a job as a dispatcher, Baneck said, noting that departments usually offer a 40-hour basic training in-house or send new hires for training elsewhere. 

But taking those classes in advance can help a person figure out whether dispatch work is right for them, before they ever apply for a job. That, in turn, can reduce turnover.

“Your heart’s got to be all-in to be able to work nights, holidays, weekends, around the clock, serving your community,” said Baneck, who also urges students considering dispatch to contact a 911 center and ask to shadow a dispatcher at work. “This is a good way of knowing whether their heart’s going to be in it or not, or whether they’re going to be capable of doing it.”

Thom agrees. “They see what it’s really like, and not what it looks like on TV,” Thom said. 

Meanwhile, Thom said WIPSCOM is still pushing Wisconsin lawmakers to include dispatchers in newly adopted legislation that lets first responders diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder apply for worker’s compensation benefits. Some states have officially reclassified dispatchers as first responders. Such a change can mean dispatchers qualify for  higher pay, better benefits and even the chance to retire earlier.

“There’s a difference between what we do every day and being a clerical worker. We are part of the emergency services world and are, honestly, the first first responder there,” Thom said. “We will continue to be a thorn in their side … speaking on behalf of our 911 professionals across the state.”

Who you gonna call? Wisconsin 911 dispatchers discuss fixes to national, statewide shortage is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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• Apricity Contract Packaging employs about 100 people each year at its northeast Wisconsin and Milwaukee locations.

• The organization is one of few nationwide devoted strictly to employing people who are recovering from addiction. 

• Workers say the environment helps them hold a job and gain confidence as they build sobriety. 

• But it doesn’t work out for everyone, with some new hires opting out during orientation or in their first few days. 

• Employees who want to stay get support if they aren’t performing up to standards or relapse.

Mellisa Edwards didn’t have a job for a decade as she struggled with drug addiction. 

That changed last March, when she got a job doing packaging and assembly work at Apricity Contract Packaging in Appleton and moved into a nearby residential treatment home. 

Edwards got off to a rocky start. She missed shifts because she didn’t want to get out of bed, leading her supervisors to write her up. But her co-workers helped her rebound. They’re taking on the same challenge of staying sober while showing up to work.

Apricity Contract Packaging is run entirely by people recovering from addiction. Roughly 100 people work at the northeast Wisconsin and Milwaukee locations each year, building sobriety and stable employment records free of the many obstacles found in typical workplaces.

Apricity leaders say they’re catering to workers who employers often overlook. While there’s been a push in recent years to make workplaces more “recovery-friendly,” few organizations nationally strictly employ those in recovery. 

“We offer employment in a safe environment where people aren’t necessarily impacted by some of the judgment and that fear of somebody looking into their history with substance use,” Apricity Contract Packaging President Dan Haak said.

Nowadays, Edwards always shows up to work on time, and she earned a perfect score on her last performance review. She plans to stay at the job for at least another year, until she finishes her probation. 

“I love it here … (Other workers) know what you’re going through, so they can relate very well,” Edwards said. 

Leaders aim for their jobs to be transitional, for workers to build “a foundation of recovery and safer behaviors,” then move into new jobs with more confidence, Haak said. But there’s no limit to how long people can stay, and many stay for years. 

“We try to motivate them as much as we can … to show them they have a career ahead in this and everything else, if they want one,” team leader Andy Geurden said. 

A unique operation

Haak began working at the plant at his counselor’s recommendation in 1998, when the organization was known as STEP Industries. He climbed up the ranks over the years and is now president of the plant. 

“I came out of treatment and didn’t have a driver’s license, didn’t have a car, and had a terrible work history, because when I was using, getting up in the morning was hard,” Haak said.

Many find themselves at Apricity in the same shoes. 

Countless challenges can stand between people recovering from addiction and employment, like rocky work histories, criminal records, a lack of reliable transportation or judgment from employers.

Keeping a job can be just as hard. Someone in recovery might need to work around scheduled drug tests or other legal appointments. They may struggle to avoid situations where substances are present, such as workplace happy hours. Their probation officers might need to meet with their bosses. 

“People don’t necessarily want to open up and discuss all of those things, especially in an interview and say, ‘Oh, I need to leave work early to go take a drug test three days a week,’” Haak said.

Instead, at Apricity, one’s recovery is implied — and understood. That allows employees to focus on getting their lives back on track. 

“I would keep (my recovery) kind of hidden, and that can kind of be a barrier for me not really getting to know people,” said Jason Koehler, who has worked at the plant for two years. “Here, everybody kind of just knows it already. It’s not really even an issue.”

Apricity formed in 2018, when two addiction recovery programs merged. Meaning “the warmth of the sun in winter,” the company’s name is a metaphor for those coming out of a dark period in their lives. 

Efforts to reduce the stigma — including state resources to help employers hire workers in recovery — haven’t erased the challenge of finding work. Apricity remains one of few places in the country focused entirely on workers facing these challenges.

Funded through grants and revenues from its services, Apricity offers two residential treatment facilities, a peer support and recovery coaching program, 24/7 on-call recovery coaches, four sober living homes and, finally, the packaging plant. 

While not a requirement, many plant workers have been through Apricity’s treatment program or stayed in its homes, safe places to land for those who have poor rental histories, eviction records or ongoing legal cases that make it difficult for them to enter a lease.

‘How to be a good employee’

On a late January morning at the Appleton plant, a pair of employees die-cut and packaged pieces of a tissue paper flower craft kit. Another team collapsed tri-fold poster boards and packed piles of them into branded boxes. Lindsey Jackson drove a forklift around the floor, moving stacks of finished packages. 

The hands-on work varies daily. Companies get a 5% tax rebate to hire Apricity for packaging or assembly projects, often because they need extra short-term labor, equipment or space. 

The daily grind at Apricity teaches people “how to be a good employee,” Haak said. 

Employees are held accountable for the basics: clocking in on time, dressing appropriately, properly calling in sick and staying productive. Leaders focus job interviews on the employee’s recovery, rather than their work history. They work around drug court dates, probation obligations or treatment appointments. They organize transportation for those who need it.

“It’s huge for self-esteem. I think people in recovery are struggling with all kinds of stuff from a mental health standpoint,” Haak said. “Being employed gives you a sense of purpose. It gives you a sense of self-worth.”

Not everyone succeeds. Some new hires leave during orientation or soon after they start work. 

“Sometimes people, they start to make up excuses after the first couple of days, and we say, ‘OK, well, what do you want? We aren’t forcing you to be here. It’s up to you. You can leave if you want, you can resign if you want. It’s not gonna hurt our feelings,’” he said. 

Employees who want to stay get support if they fall short or slip up. 

Human resources manager Rachel Hasenzahl creates “relapse prevention plans,” evaluates employees’ performances and helps them move up or toward the jobs they want. Over time, motivated staff can move into leadership roles, earning more, overseeing a crew and learning skills like forklift operation. 

Apricity hopes employees will stay a while, build work history and skills, and eventually move on. About 40% do, often at other local manufacturers, like Plexus Corp., Pierce Manufacturing and Great Northern Corporation.

But with no set end date, some workers stay for years, climbing the ranks. Many higher-ranking staff started in the program and now help others. Some who leave struggle without the robust support for recovery Apricity provides.

Hasenzahl once left to try other jobs, but found it difficult to handle the way alcohol was embedded in workplace culture. She eventually returned to the packaging plant, where she now has a decade under her belt. When she relapsed, as some employees do, Apricity staff helped her back to sobriety. When she wanted to advance, leaders worked around her class schedule so she could study human resources at Fox Valley Technical College. 

Before Apricity, Koehler bounced between jobs and was unemployed for two years. Since he started working at Apricity two years ago, he’s rented his own apartment, saved money and taken on a lead role on the packaging floor. 

“People kind of look to me for questions and (I’m) becoming a leader again, proving to myself that I can do that again,” Koehler said. “People can trust me to do that for them.”

Like Koehler, several employees said the most important thing they’ve gained from the job is confidence. 

“It took a little bit, but I can actually stand the person I see in the mirror when I wake up in the morning now,” Geurden said, “thanks to the staff and everyone having my back.”

Miranda Dunlap reports on pathways to success in northeast Wisconsin, working in partnership with Open Campus. Find her on Instagram and Twitter, or send her an email at mdunlap@wisconsinwatch.org.

Work, recovery and second chances on a Wisconsin manufacturing floor is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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• Jolene Wilkens, employment and training supervisor, spoke about the services Wisconsin’s job centers provide and how job seekers can take advantage of them. 

• The physical locations remain an important resource for those who lack internet access, need a quiet place to work or need face-to-face assistance.

• Staff at the centers can help people write resumes and practice answering interview questions.  

• Job seekers can also take free skills assessments to see what other types of work might interest them.

Looking for a job can be grueling and frustrating. 

Though Wisconsin’s job market generally favors job hunters, with more openings than unemployed people to fill them, it can be hard to know where you fit in — or simply where to start. 

The state’s Department of Workforce Development runs dozens of job centers across Wisconsin, each staffed with people trained to help you in your quest for work. Wisconsin Watch talked to Jolene Wilkens, an employment and training supervisor at Sheboygan County’s job center, about the services Wisconsin’s job centers provide and how job seekers can take advantage of them. 

“We want to meet the person where they’re at, but we do a lot of cheerleading and bringing that positive attitude,” Wilkens said. “We’re here to support you. We’re not here to make this process more complicated.”

Here’s what to know. 

Find your job center

Wisconsin has job center locations across the state. Find the closest one to you using the map below.

This map doesn’t include all of the department’s affiliate or satellite locations, such as job centers in correctional facilities. 

While the number of people visiting job centers varies widely among the different locations, more people have used their virtual services online in recent years, Wilkens said. The Sheboygan location where Wilkens works typically sees between 60 and 80 visitors each week.

While the department offers many of their resources online, the physical locations remain an important resource for those who lack internet access, need a quiet place to work or need face-to-face assistance for any reason. Getting to know people individually also helps staff make personalized recommendations or watch for jobs that are a good fit for someone, Wilkens said.

“There’s a lot of folks that prefer to come in person and have that personal touch, and some of that is just the support they receive. You build a community,” she said. 

What to bring with you 

Depending on the services you’re looking for, you might need to bring documentation or identification with you. Here’s a list of things visitors often need: 

• Driver’s license or ID. 
• Social Security card or number.
• A list of your last 18 to 24 months of work history, if applicable.
• Your cellphone, to set up two-factor authentications.
• Paper to write down your login information or to take notes.
• A resume, if you have one.
• Direct deposit or checking information.

What to expect when you show up

When you walk into a job center for the first time, you should expect to answer a list of questions from the employees. 

They’ll want to know:

• What work experience do you have? (It’s OK if you don’t have any.) 
• Have you enjoyed that work? What kind of work do you want to be doing? (If you don’t know, they’ll help you figure it out.) 
• Do you like your resume? (If you don’t, they’ll help you change it.)
• Are you having trouble securing job interviews after applying? (They might want to take a look at your resume.)
• Are you securing interviews, but having trouble landing jobs? (They’ll probably want to work on interview skills with you.)

Finding the right fit 

If you’re not yet sure what kind of work you can or want to do, job center staff can help you figure it out.

Staff will recommend taking the Occupational Information Network’s (O*NET) quiz to help understand your interests and the things you enjoy doing. The quiz asks you to rate how much you’d like different activities — such as building kitchen cabinets or teaching a high school class — if they were a part of your job. Your answers help the application suggest careers you might enjoy. 

You can also access the quiz here.

If you know what kind of jobs you want to do, or you want to see different jobs you’re qualified for, staff will recommend using a tool called Skill Explorer. The program asks you to input your job, education or training experience and produces a list of occupations and industries that your skills may transfer to. Skill Explorer also contains information about wages, job openings and projected growth for each occupation. 

You can also access the tool here.

“Sometimes it’s not recognizing all the transferable skills that you already possess and being able to move those industry sectors,” Wilkens said. “Other times, it’s identifying, ‘I like what I do, but it’s not my passion. I want to upskill and go to something else.’”

If you want to return to school or job training to pursue a different career or to move up in your industry, staff will connect you to the Department of Workforce Development’s training arm. From there, career counselors help you track down the right educational program — and assistance affording it.

You can begin browsing training programs here.

Getting the job

After settling on what kind of work you’re after, job center staff will focus on helping you secure the job. 

First: the resume. Most job applications ask for a document summarizing one’s education, work experience and skills. Building one shouldn’t be overwhelming, Wilkens said. 

Job center staff are trained to help people put together resumes that help secure job interviews. They also use a tool that creates a resume after asking you to answer prompts. When users log a job title, it suggests additions based on the profession’s occupational outlook, a federal compilation of data, information and predictions about jobs. 

Wilkens encourages people to be open to changing up their resume or being challenged. 

“You ask 100 people how to do a resume, and you’re going to get 100 different answers,” Wilkens said. “Just because you worked in one industry for 10 years, and then you did a 180 and went into a different industry, and now you’re looking at yet another, doesn’t mean there aren’t skills in there that we can transfer and highlight.”

You can access the department’s resume building tool here. It plans to roll out a new and improved version of the tool in the next year.

Job center staff will help throughout the interview process by scheduling mock interviews and helping you answer practice questions. They can also create an account on InterviewPrep, a tool that allows you to see how you sound responding to interview questions and get feedback from staff. 

Staff can also help you choose between job offers by comparing the wages or cost of living between different locations. 

Other services job centers offer 

Unemployment and job loss resources

People commonly visit job centers to get assistance filing for unemployment. 

“You can’t walk into an unemployment office, so you come into a job center,” Wilkens said. 

Staff also complete an “assessment of needs” when people visit for unemployment help. They ask questions to understand if a person is experiencing housing scarcity, food insecurity or other struggles, so they can direct them to free community resources.

“Somebody will come in feeling really defeated and disheartened about losing their job,” Wilkens said. “We have resources for that. Helping people realize all the things that they brought to the job and why they were able to retain that job for so long, really helps reframe and start thinking and looking at things glass half full.” 

“There are a lot of positives,” she said. “You didn’t just go to work and make widgets … You showed up promptly every day. You worked as part of a team. You were dependable and reliable. You adhered to safety standards.” 

Support for people with disabilities

The state’s job centers have a Division of Vocational Rehabilitation that helps people with disabilities obtain and keep work. 

The division can connect people to diagnosis and treatment, transportation assistance,  interpreter services and help with job search and placement, among other services. 

Job fairs 

Job centers often host or collaborate with local employers on job fairs and hiring events. You can view a list of upcoming hiring events coming up across the state here. 

Miranda Dunlap reports on pathways to success in northeast Wisconsin, working in partnership with Open Campus. Find her on Instagramand Twitter, or send her an email at mdunlap@wisconsinwatch.org.

Looking for work? Here’s how Wisconsin’s job centers will help you for free is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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• Officials from the town of Carlton and Cloverleaf Infrastructure told Wisconsin Watch the company is no longer pursuing a data center project near the Kewaunee Power Station. 

• The resolution happened in late 2025. 

• Cloverleaf Infrastructure is still interested in building a data center in northeast Wisconsin. 

• Meanwhile, plans for EnergySolutions to build a new plant at the Kewaunee Power Station are slowly moving forward. The company submitted files to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission last week.

Leaders of data center developer Cloverleaf Infrastructure have decided against pursuing land to build a data center in the town of Carlton in Kewaunee County after local residents opposed the idea. 

The company scrapped its plans in the northeast Wisconsin farming community in late 2025, Cloverleaf and town of Carlton officials confirmed last week. 

“The town chairperson said, ‘I don’t support data centers. I don’t think this is a good fit,’” Cloverleaf’s Chief Development Officer Aaron Bilyeu said. “We shook hands and said ‘thank you.’” 

Cloverleaf’s decision to back off makes Carlton one of the latest towns to fend off companies looking for the space to erect often-massive data warehouses powering artificial intelligence, social media and cloud computing. 

Wisconsin Watch reported in October that some Carlton residents were nervous about selling local farmland to build a data center after town officials said interested developers reached out to them.

Those fears were stoked by news that Carlton’s shuttered nuclear power plant may see new life. The plant’s owner is seeking government approval for a new nuclear power station at the site because it believes data centers and artificial intelligence will increase the state’s energy demand. 

“I’m against big business,” said town Chairman David Hardtke, who has pushed back against the idea for months. “People in the town of Carlton do not want the AI (data) center.” 

Similar dilemmas have played out in other rural Wisconsin communities, as residents try to block tech giants from settling in their towns. 

In recent weeks, Cloverleaf offered to buy property for a data center in Greenleaf, a village in Brown County. The move drew outrage from community members, leading Cloverleaf officials to ax the proposal last week. 

The decision in Carlton was a much quieter conclusion for residents of a county where cattle outnumber people by nearly 5 to 1. Some community members told Wisconsin Watch they were nervous about what losing more farmland would mean for local families and business owners.

“Once they take land away, you know, it’ll never come back,” Chris Kohnle, president of the local Tisch Mills Farm Center, told Wisconsin Watch in September. 

Others were less concerned, telling Wisconsin Watch that Kewaunee County has stagnated since the nuclear plant shuttered. They shared hopes that investment from big business could create more economic activity, well-paying local jobs and a reason for young people to stay in the area.

“If you bring in an employer like that who is paying, you’re going to see development. You’re going to see new homes being built, and more businesses move in,” Kewaunee County resident Dan Giannotti said in August. “Because right now we’re just stagnant … nothing’s happening to speak of.”

Despite striking out in Carlton and Greenleaf, Bilyeu said Cloverleaf is still looking for a data center site in northeast Wisconsin. 

Wisconsin is attractive to developers because of the tax incentives it offers and its cool climate. Data centers need cooling methods to prevent overheating — making Carlton’s proximity to a massive water source particularly attractive.

“We’re not the only ones looking for data center sites in the area,” Bilyeu said. “We’re just the only ones that are forthright, and we’ll actually talk to people and identify ourselves and let people know what we’re doing and what we’re interested in.”

Carlton still remains on the precipice of much potential change, as the Kewaunee Power Station project inches forward. 

Last week, plant owner EnergySolutions submitted files to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission that company spokespeople describe as “an important next step” in getting government approval to bring nuclear power back to the site. The permitting process is lengthy, and even if everything goes smoothly, they don’t expect construction would begin until the early 2030s.

Miranda Dunlap reports on pathways to success in northeast Wisconsin, working in partnership with Open Campus. Find her on Instagram and Twitter, or send her an email at mdunlap@wisconsinwatch.org.

Kewaunee County town staves off interest from data center developers is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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• As Wisconsin’s workforce ages and universities nationwide see fewer traditional college-aged students, UWGB is trying several unorthodox efforts to attract older learners. 

• The university offers short-term certificates that advance workers’ job skills, ungraded courses that keep older people socially engaged and classes in local nursing homes. 

• Leaders hope the initiatives will keep the region’s growing retirement-age population sharp and socially engaged — and potentially in the workforce for longer — while also bolstering enrollment.

Inside University of Wisconsin-Green Bay’s Christie Theatre, retired judge Mark Warpinski leads a discussion about how judges decide on the sentences they impose. Roughly 50 students nod along, take notes and eagerly wave their hands in the air to debate how they’d sentence someone for a hypothetical crime. 

The unusually lively audience betrays that this isn’t a typical sleepy morning lecture — most of Warpinski’s students are over the age of 50. 

“We pay attention. We ask questions. We’re not sitting on our cellphones and scrolling … like I guess most college students nowadays do,” said 76-year-old student Norman Schroeder. 

Classrooms full of older adults are becoming more common at UWGB.

As Wisconsin’s workforce ages and universities nationwide see fewer traditional college-aged students, UWGB is trying several unorthodox efforts to attract older learners. That includes more short-term certificates that advance workers’ job skills, ungraded courses that keep older students socially engaged and classes in local nursing homes. 

University leaders hope these moves will keep the region’s growing retirement-age population sharp and socially engaged — and potentially in the workforce for longer — while also bolstering enrollment.

“We’re not just an 18-year-old campus. We’re not just a campus where you live in the dorms and have a traditional experience,” said Jessica Lambrecht, UWGB’s continuing education and workforce training executive officer. “There’s hundreds of universities you can pick from that offer that type of experience. So how are we gonna stretch and serve more?” 

In fall 2025, UWGB joined the Age-Friendly University Global Network, an international web of universities that focus on including all ages. The college must follow the network’s 10 principles, which include supporting those pursuing second careers; expanding online education options; and promoting collaboration between older and younger students, among other tasks. Lambrecht hopes this commitment leads more community groups to help UWGB in its pursuit of older learners. 

UWGB’s focus on enrolling people outside the typical 18-to-24 age group has helped the college’s enrollment climb over the past decade, at a time when many universities are seeing the opposite trend.

University leaders hope to do even more to cater to retirees and other older adults in coming years, starting with more courses in assisted living facilities and building ways for older people to mentor younger students and workers. 

Addressing Wisconsin’s aging workforce

Wisconsin’s aging population has caused ongoing trouble for its workforce. 

For years, there haven’t been enough working-age people to fill the jobs left by those retiring. That trend is expected to continue into 2030.

Lambrecht said UWGB leaders are thinking about how they can “encourage and invite that pre-retirement age population to stay engaged in the workforce a little bit longer.” 

They think offering more short-term certificates can help. 

Perhaps more commonly offered by two-year colleges, short-term certificates show someone completed a handful of courses focused on a skill or topic. An increasing number of people in the U.S. are seeking these credentials, as they’re cheaper and less time-consuming than degrees. They’re also often marketed as a way for workers to gain knowledge that will help them advance in their career and earn more money, though studies and data have indicated a mixed payoff. 

UWGB offers 20 short-term certificate options, ranging from topics such as utilizing artificial intelligence to English-to-Spanish translation. 

“Your job is going to continuously change, and with the exponential growth of information, how are you going to stay relevant in the workforce?” Lambrecht said. “So that’s really where continuing professional education programs come into play. It’s giving you short-term, bite-sized programming that’s going to help you refine a skill set that you now are faced with.”

University leaders also want to create more opportunities for younger students and employees to learn from people reaching retirement age. Lambrecht said she’s thinking about how they can “marry those two audiences to be of continued value in our workforce.” For example, last summer, they debuted an “intergenerational” program aiming to connect older adults and youth through several educational workshops. 

‘Learning for its own sake’

The quest for more older students isn’t just about keeping them working. It also helps keep the region’s aging population mentally sharp and socially engaged.

UWGB’s Lifelong Learning Institute (LLI) is geared toward older adults who want to “enjoy learning for its own sake.” There are no tests, no grades and no prerequisites. The volunteer-led club offers between 150 and 250 courses each semester — the most popular including history, film and documentary classes, guest lectures and tours around the region. 

“When I retired, I realized I’ve got to keep doing things. You can’t just sit in the chair,” said Gary Lewins, a 10-year LLI student. Last semester, he took a class that taught him how to digitize all of his old photo albums. 

Norman Schroeder began taking LLI classes in 2018. The retired family doctor said it was good for more than just learning — he quickly made several friends. Today he helms LLI’s Board of Directors and tries to get more people to join.

“LLI is not only just the cognitive stimulation, the brain stimulation of the classes and learning — it’s also the social engagement,” Schroeder said. “Those are important elements for good health. Particularly in older patients, there’s a high incidence of depression, and some of that comes from social isolation … I kind of promote LLI as good for your health.”

The institute has over 800 members, who pay $150 for a year of access to classes. University professors often volunteer to teach classes related to their expertise, happy to teach to a highly engaged audience, Schroeder said. 

In early 2025, the Rennes Group, which operates assisted living facilities in northern Wisconsin, gave a $300,000 grant to the institute. UWGB has used the money to host classes at Rennes’ nursing homes, upgrade technology to livestream classes to residents living in them and take residents on outings, such as a tour of the Green Bay Correctional Institution. 

“Just because you live in an environment that provides maybe some extra help, doesn’t mean … you shouldn’t have access to things like lifelong learning,” Rennes Group President Nicole Schingick said. 

Enrolling ‘the bookends’

UWGB’s focus on older learners comes as the so-called traditional college student, aged 18 to 24 years old, makes up a smaller share of enrollment nationwide. 

In September, Chancellor Michael Alexander sent a letter to faculty and staff outlining how the university must “reinvent” to topple trends like these. To do so, he wrote, UWGB leaders must recognize “every person is a potential student over their lifetime, not just at 18 with stellar high school academic credentials.” 

In their quest to grow enrollment, college leaders have trained their focus on not just older learners, but younger ones, too. 

“(We’re) trying to think about the bookends of the population, knowing that the 18- to 24-year-old is a shrinking demographic,” Lambrecht said. “If we’re going to thrive as a university, we have to think outside the box.” 

In 2020, for example, the college launched a program for high schoolers to complete associate degrees through the university for free. High schoolers have comprised a growing share of the university’s student population over the years, from 16% in fall 2018 to more than a third of enrollment today. 

In 2024, 12% of UWGB’s students were over the age of 30, though that figure only includes students who are taking classes for credit and does not include students like those involved in the Lifelong Learning Institute. 

These approaches have helped UWGB’s total enrollment grow over 3,300 students in the last decade, while nearly every other UW school has seen a net decrease over the same time frame.

It’s common to see people of all ages on the Green Bay campus. In the summer, UWGB rents out its empty dorms as “snowbird housing” to older adults. But college leaders want to do even more in coming years to reach older people — particularly those who can’t come to campus. 

“The reality is, some of our members have mobility issues,” Schroeder said. “When you’re an 18- to 20-year-old college student, walking any distance is not a big deal. But if you’re on the campus at UWGB, sometimes it’s a long walk from the parking lot to get into the classrooms.”

UWGB leaders hope to offer more virtual classes for older students who are home-bound or have physical limitations. To assist those with hearing loss, they want to add “hearing loops” to classrooms, which transmit sound from a microphone directly into a hearing aid. Eventually, they want Rennes residents to have access to the full catalog of lifelong learning classes virtually, in real time, Schingick said.

“That would really be able to open the doors globally, if you will, to all of our residents and all of our communities, no matter where they are in the state,” Schingick said.

Miranda Dunlap reports on pathways to success in northeast Wisconsin, working in partnership with Open Campus.

As Wisconsin ages, UW-Green Bay looks to older adults to boost enrollment — and keep minds sharp is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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• ATECH opened over a decade ago to create a pipeline of students interested in advanced manufacturing careers. 

• Many students at the charter school like the hands-on classes, take advantage of paid apprenticeships and earn free college credits. 

• But school leaders say they struggle to attract students, fight a stigma that surrounds technical education and afford equipment and tools.

A cacophony of humming, drilling, banging and buzzing fills Appleton Technical Academy’s cavernous lab. 

In one corner, a student drills ventilation holes in a piece of metal that will eventually be a firepit ring. Another cuts through a thin piece of metal with clippers. Shrouded by red vinyl curtains, several students weld metal, sending blue sparks flying through the air.

As more schools embrace career and technical education, scenes like these are increasingly common in high schools nationwide: fewer students gripping pencils at desks; more wielding expensive tools and receiving hands-on training for their future career. 

Part of that trend, Appleton Technical Academy (ATECH) opened a decade ago to ease the region’s shortage of advanced manufacturing workers. Today, many of the students love their hands-on classes, enroll in paid apprenticeships and collect free college credit before continuing on to trade school. 

But it hasn’t been without difficulties. The school has struggled to attract students, combat a persistent stigma around technical education and afford the pricey equipment and tools it requires. Plus, it’s hard to determine if the school has met the original goal of producing local manufacturing employees. 

What’s happening at ATECH shows how preparing Wisconsin teenagers to eventually fill workforce holes, especially amid the state’s dearth of skilled trade workers, can be a tall task.

ATECH lead teacher Paul Endter spends his lunch breaks and free time trying to grow local support for the school and get more students interested. 

“I continue to tell people we’re the best-kept secret in the Fox Valley, and that’s not by design,” Endter said. “I wish I had more people who wanted to get involved.”

Born from industry needs

In the early 2010s, Jared Bailin, CEO of Appleton-based Eagle Performance Plastics, was struggling to find enough advanced manufacturing workers. The plastic manufacturing leader thought introducing high schoolers to the jobs would help. 

He took the idea to Greg Hartjes, who was principal of Appleton West High School at the time. Hartjes is now the school district’s superintendent and has always worried about students who don’t mesh with traditional high school education structure — students who, he says, “perhaps didn’t want to sit in English class and read Shakespeare,” but rather wanted “their hands in the work that they were doing.” 

Together, they built ATECH, a tuition-free charter school inside Appleton West that aims to prepare students for manufacturing jobs. They secured state grants to fund the launch, and Appleton voters approved a district referendum that put $2.4 million toward renovating labs and classroom spaces.

The school opened in the 2014-15 school year. Here’s how it works: Students can apply to the school at any point, but most enroll their freshman year. They choose to specialize in one of four growing industries: electronics and automated manufacturing, machining, mechanical design or welding. 

At first, students take a small number of classes that introduce them to the basics of manufacturing alongside the traditional courses required of all high schoolers, such as language arts and math. Students gradually take on more courses aligned to their specialization, such as programming for electronics students or blueprint reading for machining students.

Beginning their junior year, students take free college classes that earn both high school and Fox Valley Technical College credit. The classes chip away at a certificate in their focus area, which can shave thousands off tuition for students who enroll in technical college after graduation. Some juniors and seniors can work for local employers as paid youth apprentices during part of the school day, earning money and gaining work experience. 

“ATECH kids are kids that wanted to use their hands along with their brain in learning,” Hartjes said. 

That’s the reason senior Izzy Chappell enrolled. On an early December morning, she dipped into one of the lab’s eight welding booths wearing a helmet to protect from the harsh UV rays and flying sparks. She put the finishing touches on a welded metal skull sculpture she entered in a regional SkillsUSA competition that night. 

“Other classes are hard,” Chappell said. “This comes easy to me.” 

Getting students excited a struggle 

ATECH leaders hoped the school would be a magnet for students, but getting them interested has been a challenge.

The school debuted with 56 students. Enrollment has fluctuated a bit over the decade, never reaching the district’s goal of 120. In the 2024-25 school year — the most recent year with available state data — 68 students enrolled.  

Leaders chalk the lower-than-desired enrollment up to several difficulties: The district doesn’t provide transportation to charter schools, meaning these students typically have to find their own way to school. A jump start toward a career simply doesn’t resonate with many teenagers as young as 14, who Endter said are more motivated by sports or where their friends go to school. 

And most of all, ATECH leaders find many families still see college degrees as the gold standard. Despite growing investment in career and technical education programs nationwide and the critical need for skilled workers in Wisconsin, they say a stigma still plagues technical education, leading many to believe it’s for students who don’t perform well in school. 

“I think a misconception often is that it’s not rigorous, and it’s not for students that have an aptitude or are intelligent,” Hartjes said. “That’s not the case. We’ve given kids an opportunity to really learn using both their hands and their head.”

When ATECH was brand new, a state grant helped the school afford TV commercials and mailers. That money is long gone. Nowadays, Endter visits nearby middle schools to talk to students about career education. They organize tours and career fairs, where ATECH leaders try to entice students with the spacious labs and high-tech equipment.

“It’s not for lack of trying, you know?” Endter said. “But again, as an incoming eighth grader, charter schools represent something different. For some kids, different is good. And for some kids, different is not. So many kids don’t know what could or should be the best pathway for them.”

Meeting workforce needs?

Sophomore Noah Siong enrolled in ATECH because his brother graduated from the school and went on to open his own car repair shop. 

“That kind of opened the gateway to me,” Siong said. “It was like, ‘Oh, this stuff is pretty cool.’”

Siong wants to pursue a career in metal fabrication after graduation. Hartjes estimates hundreds of students like Siong have learned “skills that have prepared them for careers” over the last decade. But it’s difficult to know exactly how many students have gotten jobs that use the skills they learned at ATECH.

Wisconsin, like many states, doesn’t have a system connecting education and employment data, according to a 2024 Education Commission of the States analysis. The evidence ATECH leaders collect is largely anecdotal, but Endter said it indicates the vast majority either continue to technical college to finish their programs or turn their youth apprenticeships into full-time jobs after graduation. Endter estimates about 10% pursue a four-year degree. 

Bailin, the Eagle Performance Plastics CEO, said ATECH hasn’t produced as many local manufacturing employees as he hoped when he helped create the school.

“It didn’t really come out the way I would have hoped,” Bailin said. Eagle has hired between one and three apprentices from ATECH each year. He estimates roughly half have moved into full-time jobs, but it hasn’t been enough to produce the pipeline of machining employees he wanted. The company is no longer closely tied to the school, Bailin said. 

In a measure of its academic performance, ATECH’s state rating has averaged a score of 58, which the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) defines as “meets few expectations.” Hartjes said the hands-on skills students learn are not reflected in the state’s rating system. For example, the college classes students take, however advanced, don’t factor into the school’s rating.

“If they were … tested on their aptitude for mechanics, I guarantee you that they would outscore many other students across our state,” Hartjes said. “If they were being tested on those different things that we focused on, I guarantee you that their knowledge, their experience and their aptitude is going to shine through. But, you know, they don’t.”

‘Just can’t fund all of this’

“I’m going to teach you about different kinds of metal!” technology education teacher Carrie Giauque shouts so students hear her in the noisy lab. She pulls scraps out of a large trash barrel filled to the brim, identifying them to the students crowded around her: “Carbon! Steel! Aluminum! Galvanized steel! Copper!”

Behind them, sheets of metal are stacked floor to ceiling. The school goes through countless sheets teaching students the basics of welding and metal fabrication. It’s ATECH’s largest expense.

“It’s a lot less costly to have 30 students sit in math class,” Hartjes said. 

Despite needing costly materials, ATECH’s state funding is determined by the same formula as all other schools in the district, so it relies on grants and donations to make up the difference. To date, the school has received $266,000 in donations toward equipment and curriculum. 

“A lot of the learning exhausts materials, exhausts some of our resources,” Hartjes said. “(We’re) having to get support from our local manufacturing community, from a financial aspect, because as a school district, we just can’t fund all of this.”

Endter said ATECH also badly needs mentoring from industry employees, who can teach students and teachers how to use the complicated technology they receive as donations. In one classroom, a large robot sits untouched in a locked box after a college donated it. ATECH employees don’t have enough experience with the programming language to teach students how to use it.  

For their part, employers are often stretched too thin to offer up staff to mentor teachers and students. Eagle Performance Plastics used to send someone to ATECH to teach students about a pricey machine it helped buy, but there weren’t enough interested students to make the trip worth it, Bailin said.

Inside ATECH, a “sponsor wall” is decorated with the logos of organizations and employers that have invested in the school. Two-thirds of the spaces are empty — a visual reminder of the school’s need for added support. 

Endter jokes he wears “27 hats” trying to find it. 

“Every hour that I am not teaching, including working through my lunch hour, is dedicated to phone calls, emails, site visits, networking, cold calls,” he said. “You name it. I am doing it.”

The work could soon pay off. Beginning in 2024, Appleton students between kindergarten and fifth grade began taking weekly STEM classes. Endter hopes that will spark interest in career and technical education. 

“I’m on the precipice,” Endter said. “And I’m hoping that there’s going to be this giant surge of students who are looking for opportunities.”

The dilemma isn’t unique to ATECH. Many schools are eager to provide this kind of technical education, Karin Smith, a DPI education consultant, said. However, the equipment and tools are costly, and many schools are struggling to fund basic offerings. (Appleton expects a $13 million deficit this school year.) 

Wisconsin is one of five states that don’t designate state funding for career and technical education programs, relying solely on federal funding. Many states allocate more funding to school districts specifically for these programs because the federal dollars alone cannot meet the costs, according to Advance CTE, a nonprofit representing state career and technical education leaders.

“In Wisconsin, we have used (the federal funds) to, generally speaking, keep the lights on,” said Sara Baird, DPI’s career and technical education director. 

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jill Underly requested the 2025-27 state budget include about $45 million in career and technical education grants to districts. Gov. Tony Evers suggested a pared-down version of $10 million, which was scrubbed by the Legislature’s Republican-controlled Joint Finance Committee and not included in the final bill. 

“We’re seeing tremendous growth and tremendous interest in expanding CTE,” Smith said. Still, school district leaders are frustrated by the lack of funding for it. “They are feeling like their hands are tied behind their back,” she said. 

“We can’t do this alone … Every school has a tech ed teacher who is desperately trying to get kids excited about career pathways,” Endter said. “They need business support. They need donations. They need mentors in the classroom.”

Miranda Dunlap reports on pathways to success in northeast Wisconsin, working in partnership with Open Campus. Email her at mdunlap@wisconsinwatch.org.

‘Can’t do this alone’: An Appleton school prepares students for skilled trades. It’s not easy. is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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• Since its debut in March, the “Plaster + Patina” podcast has inspired excitement in Green Bay’s Astor neighborhood.

• Residents have pitched stories about their historic homes to the podcast team and opened their homes to them. 

• The first season focused on homes between Monroe Avenue and the Fox River.  

• The team does extensive research and searches for interesting stories about the properties they feature.

Inside Skip Heverly’s modified Dutch Colonial home, five people thaw from the near-freezing November evening by a green-tiled fireplace. Between them, a coffee table is littered with loose-leaf newspaper clippings, notepads and snacks. 

The group members, all residents of Green Bay’s Astor neighborhood, are preparing to spend the evening trading bits of local lore and hatching ideas that could make for an interesting deep dive. 

The neighbors run “Plaster + Patina,” a podcast series that digs up long-buried — and sometimes spooky — tales tied to the historic homes in Astor, one of Green Bay’s oldest neighborhoods. Through the project, they hope to create a shared sense of wonder and community among neighbors while memorializing the area’s history.

“Slowly but surely, I think we’re kind of seeing how this is really helping to bring the community together,” said Morgan Fisher, podcast chief editor and treasurer of the Astor Neighborhood Association. Each person on the podcast team is also a volunteer member of the association, which advocates for the area to local government and organizes events. 

After debuting in March, the series has inspired excitement around the neighborhood, with residents pitching their own houses to be featured and opening their homes to the team. At the mid-November brainstorm, the group invited longtime local civic leader Jim Gucwa to share stories he’s collected and spark inspiration for a future episode. 

The first season of “Plaster + Patina” uncovered a forgotten spring water bottling business; examined architectural changes that speak to larger societal shifts; and told tales of ghosts, among other topics. 

Each person has a unique role in the process, from digging through yellowed archives to splicing audio. Several enrolled in nearby community college to learn the skills they use. The project doesn’t currently have sponsors or advertisers to generate revenue, or plans to do so. The team pools resources, leveraging each others’ connections, interests and skills. 

“That’s what a neighborhood’s about,” said Paul Jacobson, the podcast’s historian.  

Bringing people out of their homes — and into others’

Between the 1830s and 1920s,  a high, dry slope running parallel to the Fox River — colloquially known as “The Hill” — was an attractive place for doctors, lawyers and other businessmen to build their homes. 

Today, the houses in the affluent neighborhood still reflect the period in which they were constructed. A 1980 historic district designation, championed with Gucwa’s help, preserves the homes’ exteriors from being substantially altered, among other protections. 

Astor’s design encourages social connection. Homes with large front porches sit close to the sidewalks lining each street. Parks host an ice rink, a wading pool and a shell where local bands regularly perform. 

Despite this, the area hasn’t been immune to the social isolation that’s swept across the country in recent years. 

“People have kind of gone into their (homes),” Fisher said. “They’re not on their porches anymore. They’re not out meeting their neighbors as much.”

When the Astor Neighborhood Association coalesced in 1974, it started as a way to improve the area and combat crime. It now focuses on maintaining a sense of community among residents, Fisher said. 

To do that, last summer several neighborhood association members discussed creating something where people could walk around the area, learn the stories behind the architecture they see and feel more connected to its past and present.

“What better way to do that than a podcast?” Jacobson said. 

Tales of ghosts, lost springs and … alligators?

At first, the group was nervous about how the endeavor would turn out. But once they started chatting about history and architecture, old stories of folks from the area, “everyone just lit up,” said Heverly, the producer of “Plaster + Patina.”

The first season focused on homes nestled between Monroe Avenue and the Fox River.  

“It’s nice to stay within an area, just to kind of really lay out that area,” host Al Valentin said. “We want to create a visual while you’re listening to it of what the neighborhood looked like at that time.”

Once they choose a home, Jacobson digs up the stories behind it. He dives into a slew of online resources, including newspaper archives, historical atlases and — his favorite — fire insurance maps, which include detailed hand drawings of buildings in the area dating back to the 1880s. 

After Jacobson goes “down a rabbit hole,” they zoom out and choose the most interesting event or detail he found. “Otherwise, you could spend five hours on one particular home,” Valentin said. 

The team then drafts a rough script, a bullet-point list of topics they want to hit during the show. Finally, they record the episode for free in a studio at Northeast Wisconsin Technical College. They invite homeowners or people connected to the stories to appear as guests for a live interview. 

“We kind of shoot from the hip,” Valentin said. “When you hear us converse on the podcast, it’s pretty real, with our knowledge and expertise.”

Lastly, Heverly edits out “ums,” “uhs” and any mistakes made during recording. He learned the skill at NWTC, where he studied audio editing, video editing, social media marketing and how to use Adobe applications. 

Since March, the team has created eight episodes.

In one, Jacobson shared the story of a forgotten mineral spring he unearthed when scouring old hand-drawn maps. Residents bottled and sold the water, marketing it as a natural health remedy, he discovered.

In another, they explored how the neighborhood’s first backyard pool signaled the shift of leisure from front porches to more private backyards — and was once home to an alligator.

For a Halloween edition, Valentin interviewed a paranormal investigator who shared supernatural experiences at Astor’s Hazelwood House — including an apparition descending stairs, a baby cradle rocking on its own and echoes of drums played by the Native Americans who first called the area home.

Throughout the season, local support for the project has grown. 

Lawn signs advertising the show sprouted up in front yards across the neighborhood. People asked for their home to be featured. Residents opened up their homes to the crew, giving them tours to aid the podcast. 

“Especially in today’s world, we’re all looking for that connection. We want to be a part of something that’s bigger than ourselves,” marketing and writing director Maddy Szymanski explained in the podcast’s first episode. “When you live in an old neighborhood — or a new neighborhood, really anywhere —  you’re a part of something that is bigger than you. You’re a part of a community and you can build that connection.”

The team is currently producing a final episode before moving onto the podcast’s second season. Find the episodes here. 

Miranda Dunlap reports on pathways to success in northeast Wisconsin, working in partnership with Open Campus. Email her at mdunlap@wisconsinwatch.org.

Green Bay podcasters dig up long-buried tales in their own neighborhood is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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• Wisconsin leaders want more high school students to have the opportunity to take college-level courses, called dual enrollment. 

• However, teachers need the same qualifications as college instructors, and those teachers are in short supply. 

• For many, teaching dual enrollment would require them to enroll in graduate school, even if they already have a master’s degree. 

• The state offers graduate credit reimbursement to educators interested in teaching dual enrollment classes, but school leaders say it’s a hard sell.

It’s fourth period in the auto lab at Madison’s Vel Phillips Memorial High School, and a dozen students maneuver between nearly as many cars. 

At one bay, a junior adjusts the valves of an oxygen-acetylene torch and holds the flame to a suspended Subaru’s front axle to loosen its rusty bolts. Steps away, two classmates tease each other in Spanish as they finish replacing the brakes on a red Saab. Teacher Miles Tokheim moves calmly through the shop, checking students’ work and offering pointers.

After extensive renovations, the lab reopened last year with more room and tools for young mechanics-in-training. What visitors can’t see is the class recently got an upgrade, too: college credit. 

Through a process called dual enrollment, high schoolers who pass the course now earn five Madison College credits for free and skip the class if they later enroll. Classes like these are increasingly common in Wisconsin and across the country. That’s allowed more high schoolers to earn college credit, reducing their education costs and giving them a head start on their career goals. 

Wisconsin lawmakers and education officials want more high schoolers to have this opportunity. But these classes need teachers with the qualifications of college instructors, and those teachers are in short supply. 

That leaves many students — disproportionately, those in less-affluent areas — without classes that make a college education more attainable. 

“What’s at stake is access to opportunity, especially for high school students at Title I, lower-income high schools, rural high schools … It’s really been an on-ramp for so many students,” said John Fink, who studies dual enrollment at Columbia University’s Community College Research Center. “But we also know that many students are left behind.” 

To teach the auto class, Tokheim had to apply to become a Madison College instructor. As a certified auto service technician with a master’s degree, the veteran teacher met the college’s requirements for the course. 

But for many teachers, teaching dual enrollment would require enrolling in graduate school, even if they already have a master’s degree. 

That, school leaders say, is a hard sell, despite the state offering to reimburse districts for the cost. Teachers in Wisconsin often don’t make much more money teaching advanced courses the way they do in some other states, and adding these courses doesn’t raise a school’s state rating.

“You’re asking people who are well educated to begin with to go back to school, which takes time and effort, and their reward for that is they get to teach a dual credit class,” said Mark McQuade, Appleton Area School District’s assistant superintendent of assessment, curriculum and instruction. 

High standards, short supply

Nationwide, the number of high schoolers earning college credit has skyrocketed in recent years. In Wisconsin, the tally has more than doubled, with students notching experience in subjects ranging from manufacturing to business. 

Most earn credit from their local technical college without leaving their high school campus. In the 2023-24 school year, 1 in 3 community college students in the state was a high schooler.

Education and state leaders have welcomed the trend, pointing to the potential benefits: Students who take dual enrollment classes are more likely to enroll in college after high school. They can save hundreds or thousands of dollars on college tuition and fees. If they do enroll in college, they spend less time completing a degree.

“It also proves to the kids — to some of our kids that are first-generation — that they can do college work,” McQuade said.

But not all students get these advantages. Many Wisconsin schools offer very few dual enrollment courses, or none at all. A July Wisconsin Policy Forum analysis showed small, urban or high-poverty schools are least likely to offer the classes.

Wisconsin Watch talked to leaders in five school districts. All said the shortage of qualified teachers was one of the biggest barriers to growing their dual enrollment programs. 

In 2015, the Higher Learning Commission — which oversees and evaluates the state’s technical colleges — released new guidelines about instructor qualifications. The new policy required many of Wisconsin’s dual enrollment teachers to have a master’s degree and at least 18 graduate credits in the subject they teach, just like college instructors. 

In 2023, the Commission walked back the new policy.

By then, colleges across the state had already adopted the higher standard.

Meanwhile, Wisconsin schools have struggled to hire and retain teachers, even without college credit involved. Four in 10 new teachers stop teaching or leave the state within six years, a 2024 Department of Public Instruction analysis shows.

The subject-specific prerequisite is much different from the graduate education K-12 teachers have historically sought: the kind that would help them become principals or administrators, said Eric Conn, Green Bay Area Public Schools’ director of curricular pathways and post-secondary partnerships.

“To advance in education, it wasn’t about getting a master’s in a subject area. It was getting a master’s in education to develop into educational administration or educational technology,” Conn said. For teachers who already have a master’s degree, he said, going back to school just to teach one or two new classes is “a large ask.” 

Funding tempts few 

When the Higher Learning Commission announced the heightened requirements in 2015, leaders of the Wisconsin Technical College System sounded the alarm. They warned 85% of the instructors currently teaching these classes could be disqualified, whittling students’ college credit opportunities.

Wisconsin education leaders called on the Legislature to allocate millions of dollars to help teachers get the training they’d need — and they agreed. In 2017, lawmakers created a grant program to reimburse school districts for teachers’ graduate tuition. 

But of the $500,000 available every year, hundreds of thousands go unused.

“Nobody’s ever, ever requested this funding and been denied because of a funding shortage,” said Tammie DeVooght Blaney, executive secretary of the Higher Educational Aids Board, which manages the grant.

Tuition and fees for a single graduate credit at a Universities of Wisconsin school can cost over $800, putting the total cost of 18 graduate credits around $15,000. For teachers who don’t already have a master’s degree, the cost is even steeper. The state grant requires teachers or districts to front the cost and apply for reimbursement yearly, with no guarantee they’ll get it.

A handful of Green Bay teachers have used the grant, Conn said, but many just aren’t interested in returning to school, even if it’s free.

The district offers 50 dual enrollment courses, but he’d like to offer classes in more core subjects, which help students meet college general education requirements. There just aren’t enough teachers qualified to teach college sciences and math to offer the same options across the district’s four high schools. 

Teachers are busy, and not just in the classroom, said Jon Shelton, president of AFT-Wisconsin, one of the state’s teachers unions. Many already spend extra hours coaching, grading or leading after-school activities. Those who do go back to school typically enroll in one class at a time, he said, meaning they could be studying for several years.

Pros and cons

The financial perks for teachers returning to school for dual enrollment credentials are dubious at best. 

Some teachers get a salary bump for obtaining a master’s degree, and some earn modest bonuses for teaching dual enrollment. But many teachers make no more than they would have without the extra training. 

“There’s no incentive,” said Tokheim, the Madison auto instructor, who receives a $50 yearly stipend for teaching the college course. In contrast to his standard classes, his dual enrollment class required him to attend two kinds of training.

There’s little incentive for schools either. They receive no extra state funding to offer college-level courses. Plus, the classes don’t factor into their state report card score, which measures students’ standardized test performance and graduation preparation, among other things.

Leaders at Sheboygan’s Central High School wish it did. At that school, where the majority of  students are Latino and almost all are low-income, 1 in 3 students took dual enrollment courses in the 2023-24 school year. Still, the state gave the school a failing grade. 

“It’s an afterthought in our report card, and it’s always the thing that we can celebrate,” Principal Joshua Kestell said. 

So why would a teacher take on the added schooling? 

“It’s good for kids,” Tokheim said. “That’s why they get us teachers, because we care too much.” 

Other potential draws: the challenge of teaching more rigorous courses or the opportunity to collaborate with college instructors. 

Heather Fellner-Spetz retired two years ago from teaching English at Sevastopol High School in Sturgeon Bay. She taught college-level oral communication classes for 10 years before she retired. When the Higher Learning Commission set the heightened requirements, she was allowed to continue teaching dual enrollment while she studied for more graduate credits.

“There wasn’t much I didn’t enjoy about teaching it. It was just fabulous,” Fellner-Spetz said. 

She especially liked having a college professor observe her class, and she said it was good for the students, too. “When they had other people come into the room and watch the lesson or watch them perform, it just ups the ante on pressure.”

Rules remain controversial

Meanwhile, the jury is still out on whether it’s necessary for dual enrollment teachers to have the same credentials as college professors.

“Folks running these programs generally would say that teaching a quality college course to a high school student requires a unique skill set that blends high school and college teaching, and that is not necessarily captured by the traditional (graduate coursework) standard,” Fink said.

Wisconsin educators are divided on that question. Fox Valley Technical College has kept the higher standard, limiting the number of Appleton teachers who qualify. McQuade, the Appleton leader, questions those “restrictions,” saying he believes his teachers are well qualified to teach college-level courses. A different standard tied to student performance, for example, could let his district offer more classes across each of its schools. 

Schauna Rasmussen, dean of early college and workforce strategy at Madison College, said the answer isn’t to lower the standard, but to help more teachers reach it. 

In October, a group of Republican Wisconsin lawmakers introduced a bill aimed at making it easier for students to find dual enrollment opportunities. It would create a portal for families to view options and streamline application deadlines, among other changes. 

It doesn’t address the shortage of qualified teachers.

“Separate legislation would likely have to be introduced addressing expanding the pool of teachers for those programs,” Chris Gonzalez, communications director for lead author state Sen. Rachael Cabral-Guevara, R-Appleton, wrote in an email.

As of Monday no such legislation has been introduced.

Correction: This story has been corrected to note that the Higher Learning Commission revised its policy on faculty qualifications in 2023. The current policy requires that colleges have “reasonable policies and procedures to determine that faculty are qualified” but it states colleges can consider “a variety of factors, including academic credentials, progress towards academic credentials, equivalent experience, or some combination thereof.” Wisconsin Watch regrets the error.

Miranda Dunlap reports on pathways to success in northeast Wisconsin, and Natalie Yahr reports on pathways to success statewide. They work in partnership with Open Campus.

Wisconsin high schools want to offer more college classes. First, teachers must go back to school. is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.